Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
3.1
2.4
Journals
Diversity
Special Issues
Biodiversity of Vegetation and Flora in Tropical Africa -2nd...
share announcement

Biodiversity of Vegetation and Flora in Tropical Africa -2nd Edition

A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Diversity".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 July 2024 | Viewed by 2601

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Luís Catarino

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c), CHANGE - Global Change and Sustainability Institute, Faculty of Sciences (FCUL), University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: ethnobotany; vegetation ecology; management of natural resources
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Maria Romeiras

E-Mail Website1 Website2 Website3
Guest Editor
Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: tropical biodiversity; botany and vegetation ecology; phylogenetics; conservation; ethnobotany; plant genetic resources; crop wild relatives
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Africa’s major terrestrial and coastal ecosystems and vegetation comprise a wealthy repository of biodiversity, with a high proportion of native and endemic plant species, which makes them biologically unique and provides a wide range of ecosystem services. Nevertheless, many of these ecosystems are being degraded, mostly due to the growing impacts from climate change and other anthropogenic and environmental problems, such as over-exploitation of natural resources, droughts and floods, changes in spatial distribution of species, and land degradation and use. Current land cover change is damaging biodiversity—namely, the conversion of forest and other natural areas, such as wetlands, for food production and urban development is happening at a fast rate following the rapid transformation of African societies. Such conversion leads to habitat and biodiversity loss, which affects livelihoods, water supply, and food security and reduces resilience to extreme events, particularly for people living in rural areas of the African continent.

Africa is extraordinarily rich in useful plants and local knowledge on its properties, which represents a strategic strength for sustainable development in the region. Moreover, the continent has an important genetic diversity that reflects its unique variety of plants and several important native crop species, which are adapted to an ever-changing environment.

Knowledge of the huge African plant diversity, as well as the structure, composition, and processes involved in vegetation changes, are crucial to promote their sustainable use and to conserve one of the most understudied regions in the world.

This Special Issue aims to gather contributions to deliver timely and emerging research on the main topic of biodiversity of vegetation and flora in Tropical Africa, and papers covering wide and multidisciplinary approaches (e.g., structure and composition of vegetation communities; biogeography; conservation; ecological modeling; genetic diversity; ethnobotany; agroforestry; climate changes and ecosystem service) are welcome.

Dr. Luís Catarino
Prof. Dr. Maria Romeiras
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diversity is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

8 pages, 605 KiB  
Article
Ancient Plant Lineages Endemic to Africa and Its Islands: An Analysis on the Distribution and Diversity
by Şerban Procheş and Syd Ramdhani
Diversity 2023, 15(9), 1000; https://doi.org/10.3390/d15091000 - 07 Sep 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 686
Abstract
Although Africa and Madagascar host numerous endemic plant families and genera, there has been no attempt to use recent phylogenies in order to summarise information on their age or map their distribution and diversity. Here, we list 35 plant lineages endemic to Africa [...] Read more.
Although Africa and Madagascar host numerous endemic plant families and genera, there has been no attempt to use recent phylogenies in order to summarise information on their age or map their distribution and diversity. Here, we list 35 plant lineages endemic to Africa and its islands deemed to be older than 100 Mya, map their distribution, richness, and weighted endemism, and discuss intrinsic and extrinsic factors that may have facilitated their survival. High concentrations of ancient endemic lineages are found in the Cape and more broadly across southern Africa, in the Congolian rainforests, but also in East Africa and Madagascar, these last two areas sharing surprisingly many lineages. Africa and its islands host a highly distinctive assemblage of unique plant lineages, adapted to humid, mesic, dry, and in several cases fire-prone, environments. A better understanding of their history and ecology will facilitate their conservation in a changing climate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biodiversity of Vegetation and Flora in Tropical Africa -2nd Edition)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 1980 KiB  
Article
Testing White’s Floristic Impoverishment Hypothesis in the Forest-Savanna Transition Zones of Africa
by Mathew Rees, John L. Godlee, David J. Harris, Casey M. Ryan and Kyle G. Dexter
Diversity 2023, 15(7), 833; https://doi.org/10.3390/d15070833 - 03 Jul 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1494
Abstract
In tropical Africa, forests and savannas are the two most widespread biomes and potentially represent alternative stable states with a divergent species composition. A classic, but untested, hypothesis posited by White (1983) suggests that the transition zones between forests and savannas contain a [...] Read more.
In tropical Africa, forests and savannas are the two most widespread biomes and potentially represent alternative stable states with a divergent species composition. A classic, but untested, hypothesis posited by White (1983) suggests that the transition zones between forests and savannas contain a floristically impoverished assemblage, with few representatives from each biome. Further, the evolutionary dimension of diversity has received limited attention, despite its importance for understanding the biogeographic history of biomes. Here, we quantified species richness and several measures of evolutionary diversity in 1° grid cells, using c. 300,000 occurrence records of trees and shrubs combined with biome affiliation data for 3203 species. We found that assemblages in transition zones hold fewer woody species than assemblages in forest and savanna zones, as posited by White. However, transition zones hold more phylogenetic diversity than expected given their species richness, whether one considers forest and savanna assemblages separately or together. We also show that the Congo Basin forest has low levels of phylogenetic diversity, given the number of species, and highlight south-eastern African savannas as a centre of savanna woody species richness and phylogenetic diversity. Regions with high phylogenetic diversity, given the number of both forest and savanna species, were centred around the Dahomey Gap and Cameroon, mainly in transition zones. Overall, our study shows that even if floristically impoverished, transition zones hold unexpectedly high evolutionary diversity. This suggests that they are important centres of evolutionary innovation and diversification and/or serve as evolutionary crossroads, where lineages that diversified in contrasting environments coexist within a single area. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biodiversity of Vegetation and Flora in Tropical Africa -2nd Edition)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-2
Back to TopTop